


A Certain Kind of Proof

by writteninweakness



Category: Amnesia (Game & Anime)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Bad Advice, F/M, Originally Posted on Tumblr, Relationship(s), Some Humor
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-11
Updated: 2019-11-11
Packaged: 2021-01-27 11:43:31
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,746
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21391594
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/writteninweakness/pseuds/writteninweakness
Summary: Mine thinks that every guy at Meido No Hitsuji is in love with the heroine. The only way to prove her wrong is to have her get rejected by Kent.Kent, however, happens to be the one man she doesn't want rejecting her.(Summary has been fixed. Sorry.)
Relationships: Heroine/Kent (Amnesia)
Comments: 2
Kudos: 30





	A Certain Kind of Proof

**Author's Note:**

> Um, I posted this before and deleted it not long after. I was... in a panic state, my anxiety was very high and it combined with my insecurity to say this story was awful and must be deleted (and not just it, all stories and the accounts used to post them.) I decided to try again now that my head is ever so slightly clearer (or at least, I'm a lot calmer now, at least in one respect.)
> 
> It's meant to be funny. It may be out of character, but the last line was hard to resist.

* * *

“It’s not fair,” Mine grumbled, and Sawa looked up from cleaning the salt shaker. “I don’t care if Toma says I have a lot of regulars who come in just for me. Look at _them. _They’re all in love with her. Even Waka is in love with her. Every guy at Meido No Hitsuji is in love with Kokoa. Why do we even bother? It’s like they don’t see that we’re women, too.”

Sawa frowned. “I’m sure it’s not that, Mine. I mean, I’m not as cute or feminine as you are, but I know that they still know we’re women. Few of them let us lift anything heavy and they’re always quick to step in if one of the male customers gives us trouble. Plus… There’s Ikki. Can you honestly say Ikki doesn’t know?”

Mine shook her head. “Okay, so Ikki knows, but Ikki’s a whole other situation. I don’t rank high enough in the fan club to ask him out, not like Kokoa who jumped the whole queue last month. I thought Rika was going to kill her she seemed so mad, but then it was just as friends and she hasn’t done anything with Ikki since. Still, that’s my point—everyone’s in love with her.”

Sawa shook her head. “That’s not necessarily true. Shin and Toma are her childhood friends and like brothers to her, they’re so close. It’s easy to mistake that for something more even if it isn’t. And I don’t think you can really count that. It’s love, but not that kind of love. And Waka valuing her for doing her job and not screwing up like I do isn’t love, just… appreciation.”

“Okay, what about Ukyo? He practically stalks her.”

Sawa grimaced. “Can you call stalking love?”

“He’s got it so bad it’s almost sad,” Mine said. “It’s not fair. Why are we nothing in comparison to her? It’s like we don’t exist.”

“No, you’re taking this the wrong way,” Sawa said. “I don’t think that we don’t exist in their eyes. It’s just that Kokoa has a personality that appeals to several different kinds of men. She has her moments where she’s quiet and demure like the ideal, but she’s strong and stubborn when she needs to be… also kind and gentle and—”

“I am all those things, too! Cuter and a better cook, but no, they’re all in love with her. We don’t stand a chance.”

Sawa shook her head. This wasn’t working. And it might even be part of Mine’s problem, maybe even her own. If they were constantly comparing themselves to their friend and trying too hard to gain a man’s attention, why wouldn’t it be stolen by someone who wasn’t making a show of it? Kokoa was just being herself, whereas Mine was always flirting and trying to be cute. Even Sawa got caught up in trying to be someone she wasn’t.

“Maybe if you tried _not _to go after the guys, they’d like it more. I think that’s why Ikki liked her so much. She wasn’t like all the girls climbing over the fan club to get to him. She wasn’t even interested. So if you maybe held back a little—”

“What? That’s not it at all.”

“Are you sure?” Sawa folded her arms over her chest. “I bet if Kokoa made such a fuss over a guy he’d never agree to go out with her.”

“Like that’s a fair contest when all of them are already in love with her.”

“What about Kent?” Sawa asked, thinking of their cook who didn’t get along with anyone but Ikki. And Waka, oddly enough. “Kent doesn’t like anyone, so if she went and flirted with him, I bet it wouldn’t work at all.”

“Yes, that’s it. That’s perfect. Since Kent refused to go out with me because I’m an idiot, then… I’ll really feel good if he rejects her. Great idea, Sawa.”

She frowned. “Um, Mine...”

“No, it’s good. It’ll prove that not everyone in the world is in love with her and we still have a chance. Let’s go tell her.”

* * *

Kokoa hurried towards work, knowing she should take more care along this path and yet unable to sit still a moment longer. She’d done all the cleaning around her apartment that she needed, and she couldn’t focus on any classwork, so she just wanted to get there so she could talk to her best friend. She needed to tell Sawa what she’d realized last night, and if she didn’t, she felt like she just might burst.

She hurried into the alley and into the employee’s entrance, pleased to see Sawa and Mine already in the changing area. She knew their shifts still had a bit of overlap, so there should be some time, but starting this while she was changing into her uniform and Sawa was on break was even better because they had some time to talk when they didn’t have to focus on customers.

“Sawa, I have to tell you something. I think I’m—”

“We have got something to tell you, too,” Mine said. “You have to do it. It’s the only way. Otherwise we’ll be sad and lonely forever.”

“What?”

Sawa sighed. “It’s not like that. It’s just… Mine’s convinced every guy here is in love with you, so she’s depressed.”

Mine frowned. “Wow, when you say it like that, I sound pathetic.”

“I’m sure that’s not true,” Kokoa said. She didn’t think any of the guys were in love with her. Ikki maybe wanted to be because she didn’t react to his eyes, but he wasn’t. Shin and Toma both saw her like a sister. She was just an employee to Waka. And if they meant Kent… She swallowed. “Actually, I did have something to—”

“So that’s why you have to get rejected by Kent so we know that they’re not.”

Kokoa choked. “What?”

“Since Kent doesn’t like anyone and already rejected me, he’s the perfect choice,” Mine went on. “So all you have to do is ask him out and get him to say no like he will, and we’ll all feel better about it. It’s not like you even like him, so it’s fine, right?”

She was going to vomit. This wasn’t happening. She had not rushed all the way here to tell her best friend that she thought she was in love with Kent to hear _this. _No.

“Mine’s rushing the whole thing,” Sawa said, her tone far gentler and less excited but still painful. “What I actually said was that I thought guys liked you because you were always yourself around them. So I said if you were to do something super flirty around Kent, he would probably hate it. Mine kind of took that and ran with the idea.”

“It’s still valid. If Kent rejects Kokoa, then we know it’s not that everyone loves her. And he will, so I don’t have to feel horrible anymore. Please, Kokoa, you’ll do it, right? We can get you a cute dress and some more make up and the works. We’re all off tomorrow, and he doesn’t work today, so we’ve got time to do it.”

Kokoa shook her head. “No. I’m not doing that. It’s wrong, and besides that, I actually think that Kent is—”

“Of course, if it’s true that Kent’s asexual and you get him, I think I will have to die, but that’s not going to happen, so we’ll pick you up first thing tomorrow to go shopping. I know just the dress.”

“Mine, no. I’m not doing this. You need to calm down and think this through because you—”

“And there she goes again,” Sawa said, sighing. She looked over at Kokoa. “I really didn’t mean for this to happen. Maybe tomorrow we can do something fun and get her out of this mood. I really think I made a breakthrough thinking about the trying too hard thing. It really is why Ikki likes you—not that I want Ikki, well, okay, he’s hot, I can’t deny that, but I just… I have trust issues, so he’s a bad choice and so are Toma and Shin. I just… I got to thinking some about why the guys found it easy to be around you, and I really do think it’s because you’re just… you. You don’t make embarrassing mistakes or flirt too much. If anything… you retreat into yourself and don’t react at all, but not always. So maybe if Mine or I worked on some of our own issues, it would be better for us. I know that I need to try trusting more, and I need to stop being so scatterbrained around the guys that I make dumb mistakes, so that’s what I’m going to do. Mine might need some time to see what she really needs, though.”

Kokoa nodded, still feeling a little queasy. “Um, about Kent...”

“Yeah, don’t think about it. I have to get back out there, so I’ll see you in a bit.”

* * *

She made plenty of dumb mistakes her own self, distracted by their conversation earlier. She might have been enough out of sorts to do it just thinking about her feelings for Kent, but then with Mine thinking everyone was in love with her and making her self-conscious about that, she’d managed to ruin just about every order she took. She spilled Ukyo’s drink on him and chased him off, bumped into Toma so many times even he seemed ready to lose his temper, and Shin banned her from the kitchen.

She was glad Ikki wasn’t around to see it or Kent, but Waka was glaring daggers at her, and she wanted to fall at his feet and beg for forgiveness every time she passed by. She tried harder to make it right and it just seemed to get worse.

In the end, Waka sent her home, and she found herself staring at the walls again, wishing there was an easy fix to any of this.

She didn’t want her childhood friends to be in love with her because that wasn’t the kind of love she had for them. She didn’t want Ikki to be in love with her. She was somehow immune to him, and he deserved a girl who was, but if that was all they had, it wasn’t going to work. She didn’t know that Waka saw anything in her aside from a disaster today, but before she’d been a good employee, so there was that, and she was fine with that. He was her boss. They didn’t need that line crossed.

As for Ukyo, he was a sweet enough person, but he was also a stranger she knew nothing about, so she didn’t have any romantic feelings for him.

She did think she had them for Kent, though. She’d been up all night going over their last conversation and trying to figure out why it had made her so mad to hear his opinions on relationships, and somewhere in the middle of that, she’d had her revelation. She hated his concept of love and the idea that he had that it was only about continuing the species. It wasn’t just because she was a romantic at heart like she’d thought at first.

She was full on, head over heels in love with Kent, and that conversation hurt because everything he said felt like a rejection of feelings she hadn’t even realized she had. She wanted him to believe in love… because she wanted him to love her.

“I am so pathetic.”

She curled up on her side in bed and closed her eyes. She would fix this. She didn’t work tomorrow, so she would take the time and get her head on straight. She could do this. Maybe Kent didn’t love her and never would. She needed to know that for sure, be very blunt about her feelings so he understood what they were. No being a coward about it. She had to tell him.

She covered her head with a pillow. The idea of being rejected was terrifying, but she could do this. She had to, and not because of anything Mine said, but because she couldn’t go on like this. Maybe it would hurt even more to be rejected, but if she was, then she’d accept it.

She had to be strong and not back out of it.

She reached over to the table and picked up the tickets. She’d gotten them a week ago, before she understood how she felt, but it was proof, wasn’t it? She’d wanted to go with Kent, bought tickets for them both to go, and her cowardice over asking him had to stop.

She would do this.

She moaned and buried her face under the pillow again.

* * *

“I can’t do this.”

“Sure you can,” Mine said. “You look super cute, so it’s perfect. We found just the right dress and everything.”

“Mine, you need to stop. Like we kept trying to tell you yesterday, it doesn’t matter what Kent says. You need to focus on your own issues, on working through them, not trying to prove something through Kokoa,” Sawa said, trying again to calm her. Nothing had worked yesterday—Mine was still convinced this was the solution. Kokoa would ask Kent out, get rejected, and all would be right with Mine’s world.

Sawa kept trying to talk Mine out of it, suggesting all sorts of alternate ideas and getting no shortage of backlash to where Kokoa finally said she’d do it just to stop Mine from pushing. It wasn’t that she thought this would help Mine at all, but she did need to ask Kent for her own sake, so she’d go through with it.

If Kent rejected her…

She couldn’t bear the thought, so she wanted to back out and run, even if she was supposed to work today.

This was going to be super awkward and awful, and Waka was going to fire her.

Great.

“I still say what Kent says has no bearing on what the others think of you and that it’s not the right solution,” Sawa said. “And I think Mine would if she could take the time and distance herself from this, but she’s too close to see it right now.”

Kokoa nodded. “I know. I’m not actually mad at her or anything… I know it’s been hard in the past when my friends were dating and I wasn’t, and Mine does put a lot of stock into what guys think of her, more than she should.”

“Hey!”

“It’s true,” Sawa said. “We’re all bad when it comes to boys and what they think of us. We let that matter way too much. I’m going to work on that, though.”

Mine frowned. “Why are you abandoning me?”

“I’m not. What we were doing wasn’t working, so I’m trying something different. This is my something different. You haven’t found yours yet, but you will.”

Kokoa nodded in agreement. “You are really cute, and guys like you. You have lots of regulars. So you’re worrying for nothing. It’s not about me at all.”

Mine sighed. “That’s what you say, but I still feel like they all see you and not a one of them looks at me at all. Like somehow I’m not a girl or Sawa’s not. It’s so dumb.”

“I keep telling you I think it’s a personality thing. So we don’t mesh with the guys here, we don’t fit that way. Fine. I don’t have to fit a guy here because there will be someone I fit with out there.” Sawa smiled. She looked happy, happier than Kokoa had seen her in a while, and this did seem good for her, this realization.

If only Mine could reach one like it…

“Ah, here we are,” Mine said as they reached the door. “Remember, find Kent before you change because you look super cute. You have to ask him in that dress. Now go.”

“Mine—”

“Really, you look so cute no guy should say no to you, so… if he does, you know it’s just because Kent’s not human. Okay?”

Kokoa sighed, shaking her head as she went inside the cafe.

* * *

“And the inverse parallel of that is—Wow. Now that is a dress,” Ikkyu said, making Kent regret agreeing to pick up this shift when he would have to work with him. Ikkyu was his friend, but it did seem like his hormones ran unchecked when he was at work and abusing his condition for all it was worth with the customers.

It should, in theory, be a good place to observe the phenomenon and research ways of countering it or even just measure the effects, but Kent had little patience for it, and it had begun to wear on his nerves even more than usual.

Ikkyu pushed past him and around the corner into the employee’s section. “Please tell me you wore that for me, Kokoa. It’s for me, isn’t it? You’re finally going to agree to go out with me again.”

She shook her head. “No, Ikki. That time was just for that exhibit, and it was fun enough, but I don’t like you that way, and I really don’t want anything to do with your fan club.”

“Oh. You wound me.” Ikkyu sighed. He did smile a moment later, though. “It’s actually refreshing to hear that kind of honesty from a girl. Never change, okay? We’re going to be friends for life. You are super special to me.”

She managed a small smile. “Okay. Um… do you mind if I talk to Kent for a moment? I have a question for him.”

“I can answer your math questions, too.”

“Ikki,” she said with a sigh. “Please. I want to talk to Kent. You’re not being a friend if you’re acting like that.”

Ikkyu nodded, moving away but not completely out of earshot, Kent noted. He was a bit confused as to why she’d want to speak to him. Was this about the argument they’d had the other day? He did not want to revisit that. He had said some things he shouldn’t have when he was provoked.

“If this is about the other day and that discussion we had on chemical reactions and their effect on brain neurochemistry and...” Kent lost his train of thought as he got a better look at her. Ikkyu’s reaction to her dress now made sense. While it was true that all of the female staff here managed to make their uniform look flattering, few had a personality to match such an effect, leaving Kokoa’s as perhaps the most impactful of any of them, and yet this was much different. She tended to favor one of her dresses that was almost shapeless if much shorter, and it did nothing to accentuate certain features the way this one did.

Also, its neckline was much, much lower than her usual, which tended to button at the base of her neck. This one… did not.

“Kent?”

He swallowed, shaking his head at himself for such thoughts. “Nothing. It’s… what did you want to discuss?”

“Do you know that exhibition on cuneiform that’s currently at the museum? The special one with the artifacts brought in from that new excavation they did in—Oh, where was it? I don’t remember, but you know the one I mean, don’t you?”

He nodded. “Yes. I was thinking of going to see it next week before it closes if I have time in my schedule.”

“We’re going together,” Ikkyu called out, and Kent shook his head, since he did not, in fact, think that would be possible. Their schedules seemed to conflict often of late, and this was actually one of the first times they’d worked together in weeks.

“Oh,” she whispered. “I should have known you were going with Ikki.”

“That is incorrect. We have no set plans, and he works every day next week while I have most of it booked up in things at school. It may not be possible to coordinate our schedules, and he has already gone with at least two of his girlfriends and has no need of going with me.”

“My mind wasn’t on the exhibit,” Ikkyu said, giving Kokoa a wink. “I have to see it with Ken if I’m actually going to pay attention to it.”

“Oh.”

“Ignore him,” Kent said. “I suppose you were interested in the connection between early writing and psychology, then. You want to see what it shows about the society of the time period, yes?”

“I… Yes,” she said, her cheeks getting red. “I knew you’d understand. And… I don’t know that I will, so I wanted to ask you if you’d go with me so that I could really get the most out of it. It’s not even for class. I just… wanted to see it. With you. I… I have tickets.”

She held them up, biting her lip as she did.

Kent heard Ikkyu laughing, and he knew he’d have to make his next math problem ten times more complicated as punishment for this. It was not funny, even if Kent was rather stunned to hear her say such a thing. He never would have expected her to feel that way.

She wanted to go with him.

Impossible.

And yet… she had just asked him.

And he needed to answer her.

“Yes.” He swallowed again, feeling strange. “I would like that. I believe we may even manage to coordinate our schedules for this week. Are you not off the day after tomorrow? I am as well, so that may be a good time.”

She nodded, bouncing a little as she held the ticket out to him. “Okay. Here. Um… we could… do you want to meet me at my apartment first?”

“That is possible. Perhaps—”

“Oh, crap, there’s Waka. I have to change, so we’ll make plans later,” she said, rushing off to the changing area while Kent just stood there, staring after her.

Ikkyu’s hand on his arm brought him back to his senses.

“Not a word.”

“Oh, but I have so many. A girl just rejected me soundly and chose you. I… There are so many thoughts in my head right now. Ah, but at least I know where to get the money for the alcohol I need. Shin! Toma! You owe me twenty thousand yen! Ken’s got a date. And it’s not with a robot!”

**Author's Note:**

> Also, I apologize for the typo in the summary. I've fixed it. I have no idea how that happened. *sigh*


End file.
